I said to someone once, 'I don't want to be know as 'that girl from Kinglake' but then I thought, 'Hey, thats kinda who I am!' so here I am embracing that fact and starting a blog about my journey up till now.

2009 has been a very INTERESTING year for me. Started out as another challenging year as a single mum, living in the country and bringing up my 3 kids totally solo. The usual problems of a difficult ex, no money, and a constant variety of issues put in my way.

Then came along Feb 7. Hmm. What can I say. That day's events will be the subject of another blog but the eventual outcome was we ended up driving for our lives and within a few hours lost our home, our car, the pony and chooks, and every possession we owned. On top of this hundred of homes in our town were gone and many of our neighbours, entire families Mum, Dad and kids, dead. The stories I have heard about that day will haunt me forever.

However, life does go on and we have accomplised so much already. We are now living back 'on the mountain' and have once again collected a whole house of possessions and are planning our future in this community. Through the generosity of the Bushfire Appeal and some careful planning I have now bought my own block of land (albeit very burnt out) and am now looking at building a permanent home for my little family. 2010 is going to be big.